Gas in France (1 Viewer)

May 16, 2014
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Just returned from France fafter our first outing in the new van. Used less than 1 cylinder of Calor light gas but am wondering what would be the best type of gas to use in France on a longer (much longer) trip. I know from our previous caravanning experience that you cannot get Calor in France.
 

DP+JAY

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Refillables like gaslow or alugas. We have one alugas & never had a problem getting it filled.
 
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Minxy

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You can either buy a French bottle when you're there and use that, just exchanging it as you would with a Calor when it is empty, and either sell it on to someone else before you come back to the UK or keep it for when you go to France again.

The easiest option, though, would be to get a 11kg refillable bottle - Gas-it seem to be the cheapest at the moment and reports on their products are good, so they would be my choice now (we have had a Gaslow bottle since 2009 which is the same thing but cost us a bit more as Gas-it didn't exist then). You can then refill it wherever you see an Autogas sign at a garage (people will tell you that this will be a problem but we've never had this happen to us ever!). We've just returned from France and paid on average 65c a litre, although you can pay a fair bit more if you want! At Calais it was expensive at 85c a litre and on the motorway it can be up to €1.10 a litre. The trick is to top it up every now and then rather than wait for it to go into the red, but even then if your usage is only for cooking and the fridge it can last a good few days once in the red.
 
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mpdcymru
May 16, 2014
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Thanks for the advice (particularly minx)

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Minxy

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No brainer-fixed tank and fill with GPL at filling stations.
Mike
Only trouble with that is it is likely to only hold the same amount of LPG as a refillable Gas-it 11kg bottle but will cost around 4 times the cost to install - that's why we stuck with our refillable bottle!!! Plus we can move the bottle each time we change vans (I've moved it twice now) which isn't quite so easy with a fixed tank.
 
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MikeandCarolyn

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Only trouble with that is it is likely to only hold the same amount of LPG as a refillable Gas-it 11kg bottle but will cost around 4 times the cost to install - that's why we stuck with our refillable bottle!!! Plus we can move the bottle each time we change vans (I've moved it twice now) which isn't quite so easy with a fixed tank.

We have a 40 ltr tank which ,in theory holds 32 ltrs-I weighed cost against convenience-convenience won lol.

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Apr 22, 2013
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We have an underslung fixed tank it freed up the gas locker for other uses. We valued that highly so the financial calculation wasn't that simple as it saved fitting a rear box.
 
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Minxy

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We have a 40 ltr tank which ,in theory holds 32 ltrs-I weighed cost against convenience-convenience won lol.
But you get the same convenience with a refillable gas bottle? Okay, so you may have to fill it up a bit sooner than a larger under-slung tank, but at a quarter of the price ... of course if the gas locker will take 2 x 11 kg ones that's actually more capacity and still wouldn't cost even half of the cost. As with everything, though, everyone should do what suits THEM best.
 
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Allanm

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I suppose the main benefit of an under slung tank over refillable bottles is that if will free up a lot of locker space.
Ours is 22 litres, small by some standards, but it lasts between one and two weeks.
Allan

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Minxy

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I suppose the main benefit of an under slung tank over refillable bottles is that if will free up a lot of locker space.
Ours is 22 litres, small by some standards, but it lasts between one and two weeks.
Allan
Yes it could release some locker space but if that's the main objective it may be better to invest in a beany box and a refillable bottle which would probably end up being cheaper and more usable.
 
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